


First Greetings and Last Farewells

by Alkarinque



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Family, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, It's always there, doom??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2019-05-06 07:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14636744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alkarinque/pseuds/Alkarinque
Summary: “Hello”, Eärendil whispered softly into the dark.(Eärendil and his sons; their first and last meeting, and some in-between.)





	First Greetings and Last Farewells

**Author's Note:**

> My creativity only seems to give me father-son relationships, instead of mother-son/daughter relationships. 
> 
> If there are any inaccuracies, blame it on me and please tell me! This was written in like, two days.

“Hello”, Eärendil whispered softly into the dark.

He stood beside the crib in the nursery. Outside the wind and sea was calm, and the moonlight reflected on the rhytmic waves which rolled quietly onto the beach. The windows were closed - too cold for two newborn babes - but Eärendil could easily imagine the sound of water. 

He carefully reached down to the chubby faces. They were sleeping and so, so small. He let a fingertip touch a cheek, and amazement washed over him. Warm and living children; babes! His own, his and Elwing’s sons! Two more lives suddenly living under his wife’s roofs, two more than had been living here when he had left. Dark hair could be seen on their heads and Eärendil wondered of their eyes were grey as well, or if they were blue like his mother’s. 

“Grey, most likely”, he whispered to himself. “The looks of Lúthien. Your great-grandmother. You will hear about her when you grow up.”

The last parts was said to them, though they were sleeping. He told himself they heard somehow. 

He felt a touch on his mind; the feeling of Elwing from her rooms. He figured he should leave and come back in the morning, when he could meet them properly. 

Could he kiss them or would they wake up? He hesitated. The only child he had ever met was Elwing and he had been one as well. No children lived in the Havens among the Exiles. 

He settled for a soft caress on both of their cheeks, and a whispered “Goodbye”, before he sneaked out of the dark, sleeping room. 

 

“We waited for you for hours. They didn't want to leave”, Elwing told him quietly after he had kissed her as a greeting.

She looked tired and pale in her white dress, dark locks flying around in the wind. He wanted to give her his warm cloak, but knew she would not allow it because of the onlookers. She was a queen and he needed to treat her as one in front of her people. He frowned and then sighed as he saw Meleth with two heavily clothed, small figures clinging to her dress.

He felt the usual surge of love and the wish to hold them close and never let go. To hold them until the shadow that hung over them all disappeared and they could run outside without fearing Orcs and death. Every child should know that feeling, he thought. The feeling of childish bliss. He wished he could give it to them now, so they did not have to stand on a cold pier in autumn to wait for their father to come home or have their mother bearing a burden heavy as the earth they walked.

But even that love faded and was replaced by fatigue. It was etched into his very bones and rattled them with every cold wind from Ulmo’s sea. He tasted it in his mouth and it tasted like the lembas he and his men had eaten for months out at sea. 

“We should move from here. Erellont, can you take care of the rest?” he asked the other mariner.

The other nodded, and Eärendil felt a sting of guilt when the same fatigue was seen on his face. But he swallowed it and moved towards his sons. Meleth, who had been his own nursemaid once, smiled and he smiled back.

“They have grown, my lord”, she said and he did not try to correct her on his title.

They had indeed grown. They always had.

He lowered himself down to them and felt Elwing’s eyes on his back the whole time. They were nearly hidden entirely in clothes but he could see their red noses sticking out and grey eyes looking back at him. One hesistant, one happy. 

“Hello, Elros and Elrond. I’m back again. I missed you a lot.”

Elros broke into a smile and reached both of his small arms up to him and without hesitation he embraced the child who was so little and warm and so happy to see him and soon Elrond also joined him and he held them tight and steady and wished so hard he could keep them safe forever.

 

“Elrond, do you want me to help you?” Eärendil asked one day some year later. 

His son looked up from the blocks he was building a small tower of. It was unsteady and would soon fall, by his father’s estimation. Said father sat down beside him with his legs crossed, golden hair falling down his shoulders, free from the typical braids. 

“We could build a wall, or whatever you like. Perhaps another tower?”

They were in the nursery which was becoming too small for the two boys. Now, there was only one there, though, because Elros was being taken care of by Meleth outside on the markets. Usually the boys followed wherever the other went, but Elrond did not always have the same need of relieving himself of energy. Eärendil had taken this opportunity to try to spend more time with the son who seemed to become most like his mother, though she did have a temper Elrond lacked.

Elros and Eärendil was similar in their quest for things. Elwing sometimes joked about Elros seeking his own Valinor, like his father, but in the shells on the beach, the forrests far away, the markets, the harbour, the sky and sea. All sought for without fear. Elrond, on the other hand, was seeking everything with a more sensible goal. He was curious, of course, child as he was, but he did it inside his mother’s halls or in the tales of the inhabitants. He did not seek anything beyond, like Eärendil and Elros. It reminded his father of Elwing, whose goal was to find safety and salvation in Middle-Earth, rather than in Valinor.

“Can you build Gondolin?”

Eärendil was surprised, but Elrond continued. 

“I asked mother to build Menegroth, but she said it was impossible, because it was underground. She said I should ask you about Gondolin instead.”

“Very well; I can build it. Though I will need more blocks - your great-grandfather did not build a small city, Elrond.”

 

“Why aren’t you king, father?” Elros asked.

Eärendil hesitated, taken aback by the question. “Well, why would I be?”

They were on the beach with the sun beaming in the sky above them. The sand was warm underneath their bare feet and not far away they could hear the Havens bustling with life. Elrond had stayed with Elwing and Meleth, being too tired after running around playing with his brother. Elros, on the other hand, seldom ran out of energy and now huffingly followed his father on the beach.

“Because mother is queen! It’s all in the tales. Kings have queens and queens have kings.”

“Not all of them. My grandfather, your great-grandfather, didn’t have a queen. She died too early. Do you remember her name?”

“Elenwë”, Elros answered, looking up at Eärendil and smiling.

“Exactly. Elenwë”, Eärendil said and smiled back. “So you see, a king doesn’t have to have a queen and a queen doesn’t have to have a king.”

“But it’s different! You and mother are married.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“And mother is queen.”

“Yes.”

“ … aren’t kings and queens married?”

Eärendil considered his words while his son walked beside him with his attention focused on him.

“Elros, your mother is queen of the Sindar. The Sindar are her people and she is a Sinda. I, on the other hand, am a Noldor. The Noldor are my people. My mother Idril was Noldor, and Turgon, my grandfather, and Aredhel, Fingon, Fingolfin, Ecthelion and so on. They were all Noldor. But Thingol, Beleg, Mablung, Lúthien and Dior, your grandfather, was Sindar. Do you see? We are two different peoples. Why would I, a Noldor, be king of the Sindar?”

He looked down on his son, worried he had not followed, but Elros nodded and seemed to understand. Eärendil felt like laughing at the frowning face of the child, but after a moment of silence Elros turned to him again and asked:

“Father, do you want to be a king?”

Then, he laughed, a hearty and full laugh, and answered:

“Absolutely not.”

After a moment of silence:

“I do.”

Eärendil nearly stopped in surprise, remembering the kings before them and why they no longer were there. 

 

“When will you be back this time?” Elros asked him two days later, as Vingilótë was being prepared behind them.

Elwing gave their son a worrying look which then turned to her busband trying to say  _ ‘be careful with what you say’ _ , and Eärendil looked back trying to answer  _ ‘but what can I say?’ _ . Elrond saw it but was quiet beside his brother. 

“A few months”, Eärendil answered. “Unless I succeed. Remember why I go out at sea?”

Elros frowned, meaning that no, he did not remember.

Eärendil’s heart sank, realising they had never grown up when he had been sleeping every night in their mother’s bed and shared a meal with her every day and greeted the inhabitants of the Havens every day or was there to meet them when they woke in the morning. In their world, he had always sailed. That was what fathers did. 

He lowered himself down to their height and placed his hands on each of their shoulders, looking into their grey eyes and trying to memorise their faces while he spoke.

“I am trying to find your ancestors’ land. Valinor; the Blessed Realm; Aman - it has many names. There lives the Valar - Meleth has told you about them, haven’t she?”

“She says the Eagles are Manwë’s birds”, Elrond said and Eärendil smiled.

“That is right. And remember Huan, the hound that helped your great-grandmother? He was a hound of Oromë, the Vala of hunting.” 

When he saw that they understood what he was saying, he continued to explain. 

“The Valar are strong and mighty and can bring down Morgoth and the shadow. They can help us. If I reach them, we can be safe.”

He never said anything about how he would make them help the people who had abandoned their gift - Aman - so many years ago. He never thought about it himself because it was not to think about. He could not fail. If - when - he made it, he could not fail those behind him, his family - dead or alive -, or his people. 

“What happens if you reach them? Will you be home sooner then?” Elros asked and Eärendil felt a lump in his throat and like he could start to cry there and then.

But Tuor and Idril had never lied to him as a child when it came so such things as fate and the future, and he did not want his sons to wait for his return earlier just to be crushed with disappointment. 

“If I succeed”, he said, “I will not come back. But we will meet again, I promise. Perhaps you will come to me instead.”

He tried to smile even though the shock on their faces made his heart break in his chest. He hugged them tight, memorising the feeling of their hair against his cheek, the smell, the warmth, the sounds they made. Their small hands clinging to his cloak and golden hair. Everything, so he could think back to it in case something happened - 

But eventually he had to let go and he turned to embrace his wife then. He did the same with her; tried to remember the feeling of her so close to him, the warmth of her breaths against his face and neck, her face, her hands that caressed his cheek. Even her sad smile, because he knew he would want to remember even such a thing. 

When Aerandir eventually shouted to tell him they were ready, Eärendil kissed his sons goodbye, giving them another quick hug though it hurt even more letting go this time, and told Elwing quietly:

“I trust you. Somehow everything will be solved, even this with the sons of Fëanor, my love. I love you. It will be alright.”

“I hope so. I will do everything I can”, she said, with a voice strange from sadness.

“I know you will. You always do”, he said, smiling, and then added: “My queen.”

She could do nothing but smile something happy at that. He kept the light of that smile in his heart, together with their sons’ laughter, as he boarded his ship to sail once again. 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how to write children, especially not peredhil-children and their weird/unknown way of growth. Some of you probably think Elrond and Elros talk a bit much considering their age, but dare I mention Eärendil talking like a grown up at seven? It's in the early version of the Fall of Gondolin. That thing confuses me.
> 
> I'm on tumblr as alkarinqque (can't link it, I'm a grandma when it comes to technology) and I would be happy to discuss anything concerning Tolkien there, if anyone is interested. 
> 
> I also live on kudos and feed on comments, so please leave one if you liked what you read. Seriously. I get a heartattack of happiness every time it happens.


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